6th Sunday after Trinity July 11, 2010
Matthew 5:20-26 A Label You Can Live With
Dear fellow redeemed,
They play a role in every part of our lives; from shopping, to arranging our computer files, to evaluating a political candidate. I speak of our use of labels.
* Imagine having to live without them. You were not allowed to label someone “intelligent”, “friendly”, “pretty”, “levelheaded”, “hardworking”, “a keeper”.
* Or think of the labels you use at home. You may be known as “the man of the house”, “the matriarch” “my better half”, “the baby”, or in the community as “a leader”, “a real go-getter”, “a friend”, “a colleague”, “a Christian”.
* Labels are often used in a productive or positive way.
But they can also be used in a destructive way. We label those who don’t think and behave as we do, as “a jerk”, “an idiot”, “a real piece of work”, “one with issues”.
* Or in politics and the church that certain person is an “ultra liberal” a “progressive”, a “right-winged conservative”, a “radical”, an “unbeliever”.
They’re just words, right? Everyone’s labeled in some way or another. And for that reason we live with them. No sense getting bent out of shape over them. Just deal with it!
* So, what’s Jesus’ beef with the word “fool”? “And whoever says, ‘You fool!’ “ he says, “will be liable to the hell of fire.” Really? It’s just a word!
* Is it? To be absolutely honest, some words, may have much more to say about the person who’s using the word than about the person who’s being labeled.
* Jesus happens to be talking in today’s reading about the progression of anger, what we might call the opposite of “righteous anger”.
* Even in the first phase of this anger, Jesus compares the person with the murderer who’s liable to God’s judgment. The only difference is that instead of this murder being driven by the hand, it’s driven by the heart.
* In the final phase of anger, the word “fool” was used to judge that a given brother was ignorant of the salvation Christ had won for us. This person was an unbeliever!
He therefore was not worthy of being saved but instead should be damned.
* It was a label no one could live with. Think about it!
Having made yourself God’s judge, you were sentencing this person to eternal death.
* And of course the only way for this to work was # 1: if Christ had not taken away God’s anger by dying for this person’s sins; and # 2: if you were more righteous than this brother you were condemning.
Perhaps at this point you’re going to tell me: “labels are not beneficial to anyone!”
I should just consider how much judging the world is into these days.
1 Because you’re “divorced” people get to label you as “immoral”, “selfish”, “into yourself.”
2 Because you’re “handicapped” people get to label you as “dysfunctional”, “needy”, “lacking intelligence”.
3 Because you’re “depressed” people get to label you as “overly emotional”, “lazy”, “moody” or “manipulative”.
4 Because you’re a “senior” people can label you as “over the hill”, “unable to contribute to our society”, “eccentric”, “a burden”.
5 Or because you’re not like the rest of us middle-classed white people, people can label you as “weird”, “incapable of fitting in”, “unwanted”.
* I may very well agree with you. We can live without these labels!
But shall we rid ourselves of all labels? Not so fast!
We bring Jesus into this and remember he had his favorite list of labels too.
* If you were a pharisee there was a pretty good chance you might be labeled a “hypocrite”, a “blind guide”, a “whitewashed tomb”.
Speaking collectively, you were “snakes”, “brood of vipers” “blind fools”!
* Of course, Jesus also had labels for those with the right kind of heart. You were “the meek”, “the merciful”, “the peace makers”, “the pure in heart”, “the righteous”.
* These are labels with which we can live, and live eternally I might add.
Yes. There is a place for applying labels to others.
* If a fellow Christian is repentant of a given sin, or is feeling desperate because his life has been turned upside down, you remind him that he’s a “child of God”.
* On the other hand if a brother or sister has become arrogant or self-righteous in their outlook, you remind them what it means to by a “hypocrite”.
* Other times we may serve that brother or sister by helping him or her to exchange the wrong label for the right one.
Jesus states: “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”
* Our Lord is referring to the practice of interrupting a religious act if you became conscious that a given sin had come between you and another believer.
* It was the practice under the Old Covenant as well as among the early Christians.
Before completing a sacred duty, you would drop everything and first be reconciled.
* If he or she had reason to label you a sinner or hypocrite, you would go to that person so that confession and forgiveness could be declared. Afterwards, by God’s grace, you could go back to calling each other that “brother” or “sister”.
It’s a practice we’d do well to follow today. Before we go to the divine service to confess our sins and receive forgiveness, go to each other for the same purpose.
* But what if it just doesn’t work out? We don’t happen across this brother or sister, and we’d rather not get on the phone. And unfortunately matters are still tense and strained.
* Or maybe we’re thinking, “why should I take the first step to iron things out between us, when this person has no basis for faulting me? If anything, I have cause to fault him for resenting me for no good reason!”
* But none of that is relevant. It is never our right to brand another member of Christ’s body as “that sinner”, on the basis of whether things are good between the two of us, or whether this other Christian is still mad at me.
Yes. Fellow Christians hurt us. Over and over again they cause us pain, informing the many around us that we’ve behaved in an unfair or unreasonable way.
* We complain: “He doesn’t have all the facts!” “She’s a gossip!”
He’s turning everyone against me!”
* But the question is not what harm this brother or sister has brought to your good name.
The question is what harm you and I and every other person professing the faith have brought to the name of our only God. I refer to those times we make ourselves the judge.
* That’s right! Every time we express the right to be angry with another individual on the basis of the anguish they’ve caused us, we harm the name of our Lord.
* You see, we’re declaring that the anger God leveled upon his Son in our place was not enough. And that’s a problem, for if God does not look at us through the suffering of his Son, he must look at us through his perfect Law.
* And once he looks at us through his Law, he has every cause to label us “sinner”, “hypocrite”, “snake”, “blind fool”, and then condemn us on the basis of who we are.
* The words of our text could not be more clear. “For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
* The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees is one based on the Law, based on the right to judge or be angry with another sinner. And it’s never enough.
The question is not about that brother or sister’s sin, and whether you have a right to be angry.
The question is about your sin and mine, and whether God has a right to be angry.
* However, once we’ve answered that question, there’s a second question to address.
Is the label, “sinner”, “hypocrite”, “fool” a label with which we’re required to live for the rest of our life here on earth and for all eternity?
* The answer is “no.” For Christ has taken our label and fastened it to himself.
He’s labeled himself “sinner” so that we may be labeled “righteous”.
* St. Paul writes: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
* By going to cross for us, Jesus would exchange labels with us.
Today, in the sight of God, he’s the sinner, and we’re the righteous.
And don’t get the idea that this is an abstract concept of sorts existing only in God’s head.
* For not only does our Lord give us a new label.
He invites us to accept the label he’s given us and wear it with great pride.
* “Do you not know” Paul asks, “that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” We’ve been washed by his death of every sin, that is.
We’ve been labeled “holy”, “righteous”, “cleansed of sin”.
* Paul also writes the Galatians: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” We’ve put on his righteousness as a label. This means our sin in no longer visible, not to God nor to anyone who acknowledges we’re baptized.
* The long and short of it is, we needn’t fear God’s anger any longer.
For no sin or human judge can remove the label with which our Savior has marked us.
We are “God’s child”. We are “the righteousness of God”. We are “baptized!” And we have every right to remember this when today’s sin and judges would tell us otherwise.
* Luther says it this way: “(Therefore) we must hold boldly and fearlessly to our Baptism, oppose all sins and terrors of conscience with it, and humbly say; I know very well that I do not have a single work which is pure; but surely I am baptized, and through my Baptism God, who cannot lie, has bound himself not to count my sin against me but to slay it and blot it out.”
No. You’ll never be as righteous as those who would label and judge you according to their own standards and good deeds.
* However, your righteousness far exceeds that of the pharisees and scribes and hypocrites of today who would rather stand in judgment than stand under the cross.
* Your righteousness, you see, is your Savior’s righteous who received God’s anger and punishment in your place.
Labels do play a role in every part of life and in every culture of the world.
Unfortunately, labels are more often used to harm individuals than to serve them.
* Such has been the case with what has been called “a badge of shame”.
Dating back the last few centuries, a badge of shame has served as a symbol to be worn by certain people for the purpose of public humiliation or persecution.
* Under the Poor Law Act of 1697, beggars, in order to receive help from the church, were to wear a badge of blue or red cloth on the shoulder of the right sleeve.
* A yellow badge was worn by Jews both during the middle ages and in Nazi Germany. It was a cloth patch they were to sew on their outer clothes to mark them as Jews.
* Some of you may also remember women in Germany during World War II.
After fraternizing with the occupiers, they were marked by having their heads shaved.
* It’s hard to imagine living with a label which represents such shame and disgrace.
* We can only thank our Lord for the label he provides the believer.
Instead of demonstrating anger, bias and a lack of compassion, God’s label communicates mercy and grace for the sinner.
* And that is a label we can definitely live with. Amen.
May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.